Njûlan Grammar
Mûmo hapn scrîpm un Njûlan. Njûlan Njûlan is a conlang with its own regular grammar, which follows. To read more about the language itself, you can read it here (in Njûlan). The Alphabet The 25 letters in this language are as follows: Diphthongs Naturally, not all sounds have been covered. Say you wished to transcribe your name but you couldn't find the way to make a certain vowel sound. This is easily done by making diphthongs (the combining of two vowels to make a new sound). The vowels and examples are as follows: Note: the 'th' in Elizabeth does not exist. We recommend swapping it for an 'f' or a 't'. Further Examples: * Maikl Hauwâd - Michael Howard * Saemon Djôuns - Simon Jones Remember that transcribing your name is done to your own tastes. You could even make a brand new name for yourself. Following the phonetic rules are important but as long as it makes the preferred sound(s), it doesn't really matter whether you follow this table to the letter. The Basic Grammar Points * Njûlan uses the general European sentence structure of Subject + Verb + Object. This order cannot be broken as the subject and objects may get confused. Where other particles- such as time and place- are concerned, these can be placed anywhere depending upon emphasis, importance and sound. * Verbs do not need to be conjugated in relation to the subject/pronoun. You need only worry about conjugation of verbs in the tense and to also show a change in state/movement. This will be explained in the next chapter. ** Examples of this: *** Pe sjeh Mâtjû. I am Matthew. *** Djon sjeh zêt jânna. John is seven years old. * Circumflexes are found upon vowels that require double the time to pronounce. In the number "zêt", the need for the 'e' sound is double. It is pronounced "zeht". You will notice that some words spell these sounds by adding a "h" after the vowel. These spellings are not interchangeable. * Plural nouns are made by adding '-na' to the noun. ** Tîp (house) - Tîpna (houses) ** Jên (pen) - Jênna (pens) * To negate a verb, you simply put the prefix "bê-" in front of the verb. So pe sjeh ("I am") becomes pe bêsjeh ("I am not"). Pronouns * The following is a list of pronouns. You see that to change a pronoun in a plural pronoun (I'' into ''we, for example), you follow a slightly altered plural rule of -na plus circumflex to the first vowel. * To make a singular possessive pronoun, you change the the main vowel into an 'â'. To make a plural possessive pronoun, you change the 'na' into 'nâ'. You will notice that "Ça" did not change for the possessive (her). This is to ensure that no confusion will occur between 'his' and 'her'. Object Pronouns The Object Pronouns represent who receives the action. This is what makes "me" different from "I" in English. To form the Object Pronouns, you simply swap the last vowel with a 'u'. Note: him, her and it- çue, çua and çui- all have had their letters put back onto the end. If that didn't happen, they would look the same and it would be ridiculously difficult to understand. Note also: for "them", you would generally just use çênu. If you wanted to be specific, you could add "e" to make it a specific group of males, "a" for females and "i" to objects. But it's normally not necessary. Examples: *Te raidû çênu. - You need them. *Çe çivitan pu. - He scared me. Emphasis In English, there exists the form of "myself", "yourself" and so on. These are used in Njûlan for emphasis and are formed by taking the ordinary pronoun and adding "-jlej". For example- *Pe, pejlej, ehm floh. - I, myself, like blue. *''Çejlej'' sjehiçlan bântçipo! - He's the wrongdoer. Tenses Tenses are really easy to formulate in Njûlan. All we need to do is add certain endings. There is no need for auxiliary verbs, like in most European languages, because all is shown inside the ending. There are six tenses: the Present, the Simple Past (did something or have done something), the Imperfect (was doing, used to do), the Close Past (just did something), the Close Future (going to do something) and the Distant Future (will do something). See how the verbs change to create each tense: * A quick point on tenses- there is no differentiation between the Present and the Present continuous. ** Pe tâk means 'I walk' and 'I am walking'. * Also, the Simple Past is a mixture of two concepts in English of the Preterite (I have done something) and the Perfect (I did something)- either translation works fine. Conditional Tense The Conditional Tense generally talks about what you "would do". In Njûlan this is easy as we stick with the rule of there being only one word to display the tense. This is different from the other tenses because we use a prefix. This allows you to add your suffixes to give it a temporal aspect. The prefix we use is "sçeh-". *Pe sçehmâna. I would go. *Pe sçehmânitan. I would have gone. Future Perfect Another rather difficult tense to think about is the Future Perfect. This refers to something that "will have happened". To form this, we combine the Simple Past and the Distant Future endings to create "-uçitan". *Pe mânuçitan. I will have gone. *Pe peuçitan. I will have bought. The Command Form Naturally, all languages contain the ability to command and order people to do things. However, there is no special conjugation for verbs to show this. Like in English, just say the verb's infinitive in a commanding voice. *Mâna! Move! or Go! The Passive Voice The Passive Voice is used to focus the attention on the object rather then the subject. Compare these two sentences: *Da rauf hwapitan da mîan. - The dog chased the cat. *Da mîan bo'hwapitan bon da rauf. - ''The cat was chased by the dog. The difference is that the object (the cat) is now in the focus. If we didn't change the verb, the meaning would simply change to the cat chasing the dog, which would be incorrect. By adding 'bo-', which can be referred to as the 'passive particle', the verb automatically reflects the passive voice. The word 'bon' means 'by' but only in the passive voice and is placed before the subject. It makes it easier to spot the 'do-er' of the action, so to speak. *Seimon sçpêk Njûlan. - Simon is speaking Njûlan. *Njûlan bosçpêk bon Seimon. - Njûlan is being spoken by Simon. Subjunctive Luckily for readers, the Subjunctive does not exist as a separate voice in Njûlan. It is, instead, shown through the use of the Conditional: *Oç Maikel sçehsjeh hul, çe sçehkantet duhg Franiç. If Michael were intelligent, he could learn French. Questions There are two types of questions that exist within Njûlan- those which require a question word and those that do not. Question words (such as 'what', 'who' and 'which') ask for a specific detail whereas questions such as "Did he read that book?" require a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer. * The question words in Njûlan are as follows. The question word always comes first with the verb remaining in second position, followed by the subject and the rest of the sentence following as normal. ** Te çul dâ tuv. - You have the book. ** Cûla çul te dâ tuv? - Why do you have the book? Question words include: * To turn a statement into a question for a 'yes' or 'no' answer, you can switch the verb and the subject around. ** Te çul dâ tuv. - You have the book. ** Çul te dâ tuv? - Do you have the book? *There are specific translations of 'yes' and 'no', however, here you simply answer with the verb for 'yes' or add the negation particle 'bê-' to the verb as 'no'. ** Çul te dâ tuv? - Do you have the book? ** Çul/Bêçul - Yes/No *If you cannot work out a way of saying 'yes' or 'no', you can always use 'ieda' (yes) or 'nâ' (no). **''Ieda'' comes from the verb ied meaning 'to nod'. Possession In all languages, there is a way to denote that someone or something owns something else. For example: *Matthew's pen. Matjû-ê jên. In Njûlan, this is shown by simply adding "-ê" to the end of the owner. More examples include: *The Queen's ruby. Da Kimplama-ê rosçtro. *Malcom's dad. Malcom-ê fahame. Changing of State/Place Unfortunately, this language isn't without its share of annoying linguistic features. This little feature allows us to make a clearer image of how an action is done. Compare the following phrases: *Djon sjlah un da bed. John sleeps in the bed. *Djon sjlah'''ano un da bed. John falls asleep in the bed. The addition of '-ano' to the verb makes it clear that the state has changed. In the first example, John is merely sleeping in the bed. In the second example, John has changed from awake to asleep. There is a change of state. In Tenses Evidently, this will lead to two tense endings. If we were to use the same examples but put them into the past, the past tense ending will come before the State/Place ending. *Djon sjlahitan un da bed. John slept in the bed. *Djon sjlahitano un da bed. John fell asleep in the bed. As is clearly seen, since the tense endings already end in 'an', we simply need only to add an extra 'o'. Comparative and Superlative The comparative sees the adjective take 'tsî'. *ohp (old) - ohptsî (older) The superlative sees the adjective take 'ssî'. *ohp (old) - ohpssî (oldest) Numbers and Counting Here are the first ten numbers: Bigger numbers are made by simple maths. Twenty is made by "two-ten" because two times ten is twenty- dûdîn. Twelve is "ten-two" because ten plus two is twelve- dîndûo. As you have seen, sometimes the ending needs to be cut off the first half to introduce the second half smoothly. This normally happens in scenarios where the preceding number is two syllables long (e.g. fûdîn is forty, okodîn is eighty) but you will learn them as time goes by. Other useful words are: Higher Numbers As mentioned, you use simple maths and multiplication to create higher numbers. For example: *110 - Kandetdîn (100 + 10) *114 - Kandetdînfûwa (100 + 10 + 4) *3,456 - Drimilsan fûwakandet a fipdînsês (3x1000, 4x100 and 5x10 + 6) *7,891,234,567,890 - Zêtkansan okonohundetaksdînonodrînsan dûkandetdrîdînfûwadînsan fipkandetsêsdînzêtmilsan okonokandet ac aksdîn Note: A space in the written number would fall in the same space as a comma in the actual number. The word "and" is generally put before the final number. Also note how "one hundred" in Njûlan does not require the "one" as "kandet" includes that meaning and this works the same for "one thousand", "one million" and "one billion". Ordinal Numbers Ordinal Numbers denote the rank of a person or object, such as "first" or "second". To create an ordinal number, you add the suffix "-ono" to a number. If the number already ends in a vowel and is more than one syllable long, it is deleted and "-ono" is added on. This means that "three" does not lose its "i". Just like in English, "first" can be written simple as "1st". This shortening is also possible in Njûlan by adding "-ono" to a number. *1ono - 1st - ''Onono *130ono - ''130th -'' Kandetdridînono Multiplicative Numbers "Multiplicative numbers" refers to words such as ''once, twice and thrice in English (the latter being less commonly used). To form these in Njûlan, you simple take the first syllable of a number and add "-jâc". This creates your multiplicative number. "Jâc" is an altered form of the word "iâc", which means "time". *Ono + jâc = Onjâc (once) *Dûo + jâc = Dûjâc (twice) *Drijâc = Thrice (three times) *Fûjâc = Four times If you're using bigger numbers, then it's the final number in the number phrase which is cut short. Look below: *114 - Kandetdînfûwa -> the final number in this phrase is 'fûwa'. The first syllable of 'fûwa' is kept and the 'jâc' is added to the end. Therefore: **Kandetdînfûjâc = 114 times Basic Phrases Njûlan Grammar Njûlan Grammar